Around 2630 B.C., the third dynasty’s King Djoser asked Imhotep, an architect, priest and healer, to design a funerary monument for him the result was the world’s first major stone building, the Step-Pyramid at Saqqara, near Memphis.

The Old Kingdom began with the third dynasty of pharaohs. Old Kingdom: Age of the Pyramid Builders (c. The annual flooding of the great Nile River provided the necessary irrigation and fertilization each year farmers sowed the wheat after the flooding receded and harvested it before the season of high temperatures and drought returned. In the Archaic Period, as in all other periods, most ancient Egyptians were farmers living in small villages, and agriculture (largely wheat and barley) formed the economic base of the Egyptian state. The earliest known hieroglyphic writing also dates to this period. To the ancient Egyptians, the king was a godlike being, closely identified with the all-powerful god Horus. The Archaic Period saw the development of the foundations of Egyptian society, including the all-important ideology of kingship. The capital would grow into a great metropolis that dominated Egyptian society during the Old Kingdom period. King Menes founded the capital of ancient Egypt at White Walls (later known as Memphis), in the north, near the apex of the Nile River delta. A century later, King Menes would subdue the north and unify the country, becoming the first king of the first dynasty.ĮXPLORE THE MYSTERIES OF ANCIENT EGYPT WITH HISTORY TRAVEL™. A southern king, Scorpion, made the first attempts to conquer the northern kingdom around 3200 B.C. Neolithic (late Stone Age) communities in northeastern Africa exchanged hunting for agriculture and made early advances that paved the way for the later development of Egyptian arts and crafts, technology, politics and religion (including a great reverence for the dead and possibly a belief in life after death).Īround 3400 B.C., two separate kingdoms were established near the Fertile Crescent, an area home to some of the world’s oldest civilizations: the Red Land to the north, based in the Nile River Delta and extending along the Nile perhaps to Atfih and the White Land in the south, stretching from Atfih to Gebel es-Silsila. Images and sculptures of Nefertiti depict her famous beauty and role as a living goddess of fertility. 5000-3100 B.C.)įew written records or artifacts have been found from the Predynastic Period, which encompassed at least 2,000 years of gradual development of the Egyptian civilization.ĭid you know? During the rule of Akhenaton, his wife Nefertiti played an important political and religious role in the monotheistic cult of the sun god Aton. Building Egypt's Largest Pyramids Predynastic Period (c.

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